Do you remember your first breath? I DO. That first inhalation, that allowed life to flow within you. They watched over you, praying for you, willing you to draw that first breath. That infinite, fearful wait that lasts a lifetime, but passes in an instant. A laugh, a sob, an exclamation of relief knowing that life is reborn. Life is safe. Your breath is steady and you small lungs mark the passage of time. The perpetual motion that is to be your guide, your gauge, your countdown.
Do you remember the first time your breath turned to laughter? I DO. A high pitched giggle of wonder and awe. You were so young, everything was new and fresh. Exuberance uncontained. When you could laugh with your entire being and it felt right. The people around did not exist, this was your world. As they watched, their breath trickled out as they watched you. They laugh “with” you, seeing your mirth as “cute”, an excuse for them to try and grasp what they know they have lost. But it is contained, the breath controlled. Too aware of those around, cautious of the façade they must maintain. The breath locked tight. Thankfully you were too young to see it, too realise that that was where your future may lie.
Do you remember when your breath was torn from your body? I DO. A chilling sweat, a scream. Your heart crashing against your ribs, fighting to escape that irrational panic. You try. You try to draw breath. A choke to a gasp… a gasp to a pant. You could never remember those first terrifying images. They fled before you as you lay awake and your heart slowed. Your breath slowed. You grasped, you have always grasped. You know that the images will change, but the scream will never change. The panic will never leave.
Do you remember the first time you felt their breath? I DO. The way it caressed. A warmth along your neck that left things aching inside you. Erratic. Your breath a sigh one moment, a gasp the next as their breath traces those sensitive parts of who you are. In your breathing you are breathless, sinking into a warmth of black oblivion. Tortured. Ecstatic. You craved that gasp. Fixated on that feeling of heat, of breath intertwined with breathless. Was it ever the same? Could it feel like that first time? Each time you closed your eyes, a different breath. This time heated and urgent, their breath invading yours in throes of passion. That time soft, lingering, the warmth that caresses you cools ever so slowly, a shiver. In those times you remember, and you reach, allowing their breath to fill you, imbue you. So close.
Do you remember the first time their breath stole your breath away? I DO. The warm caress that built, that quickened as it fought to release those aches inside you. Quick, frantic, your breath in violent, harmonious combat. A scream, a different scream, torn from your throat in that moment of animalistic, climactic release… No breath, as the scream erupts, you suspend in THAT moment. That moment of… in between. Infinite and all encompassing. Darkness swallows as light explodes within and blinds you. Breathless, but never feeling so alive. A vortex of sensation that turns the world on its head, and for that moment of between, you are the paradox.
Do you remember your last breath? I DO. You breathe in, your chest rises. You look so peaceful. Floating in that warm darkness… this time your eyes stay open. Every breath you have ever taken. That first life-giving inhalation, that first burst of laughter. At last you can remember that scream, and the panic is gone. At last you can remember that fear, yet still breathe easily. Once again your breath catches and you suffuse with a glow of warmth. You wish you could hold that feeling of their breath, the way it made you ache, and yet opened you to EVERYTHING.
You breathe in… slower. You realise that the breath is all that matters, has mattered. Life giving harmony, a disrupted constant. It has always been with you, shared your every experience as impartial spectator & intimate confidant both. Drawing you into life, immersing you, goading you into everything you have ever known.
Your breath has been everything, yet in the end you know that your breath is… nothing.
You breathe out, and your peace is now forever.
Did you remember your last breath?
I WILL
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